Chapter Text
Danny was hungry.
He hadn't eaten since Monday, and he was pretty sure that was starting to show. He'd been living on his own for the past three weeks now, and each time he looks in the dingy mirror pinned into the wall of his shitty one bedroom, he sees less and less of himself as he grows thinner.
And it's not like they hadn't been prepared for this. At least it felt like they had been--him, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker up till three in the morning planning an elaborate escape plan for when shit inevitably hit the fan with his parents. They'd packed him unperishables, money, a change of clothes, a burner phone, extra vials of ecto, a knife--all the essentials! So, why now, only three weeks in, was Danny completely out of food and running painfully low on ectoplasm?
When he first got to Gotham, he had been starving. Guess four hours of nonstop flight will do that to you? So, he ate. And ate. And he tried to hold himself back! But it must have been something to do with his ghost half, because no matter how much he shoved in his face, little satiated him. It was a seriously problem.
Danny sighs, frustrated, and steps away from the mirror. His apartment was truly a shithole. One cramped, dingy bathroom, a kitchenette that looked like you didn't even need to use any of the appliances for it to catch fire, and a living room barely big enough for a mattress. And it was in fucking Crime Alley of all places!
But no one else was willing to rent a one-bedroom out to a fourteen-year-old who only had cash. On a month-by-month lease. So dingy Crime Alley studio apartment it is.
He isn't sure if he has neighbors. He hasn't seen or heard anyone, aside for some thumping coming from the apartment to his left. Which was even odder, because he's never seen anyone actually go in or out of it. But he knew better than to go sticking his nose in peoples' business, especially on this side of Gotham.
He makes his way back over to his window, sliding it open to sit out on the fire escape. The breeze was nice.
He curls in close on himself, bringing his knees up to his chest and leaning the side of his head on the tops of his knees as he looks out over the street.
He hears a distant voice, from somewhere on the rooftop, and glances up, an eyebrow raised. "Yeah, Hood, yes, I'm going." Clattering as whoever it is lands on the fire escape and begins descending. "Of course you have to be there! It's not a family dinner without the whole family!" Danny watches as a dark shape appears on the fire escape for the window of the apartment to his left, climbing down the stairs casually. "Hood, I'm saying this because I love you so much, little bird, but you don't have a choice." He slides the window open.
Danny can hear the person on the other end groan. Danny smirks, a huff of air leaving him amusedly.
And that huff of air was just enough for the person's eyes to dart to Danny. They had some sort of mask over their eyes, only showing white where their eyes were supposed to be.
Danny's eyes blow wide.
They stare at each other for a moment. Somewhere off in the distance, a car horn blares.
Then, in a flurry of movement, Danny is scrambling back inside his window.
"Wait!" The person calls, scrambling over to Danny's fire escape. "Wait wait wait-"
Danny tries to slam his window shut, but the person's gloved hand catches it just before it can close. "Hey! Can we just- Can we calm a little bit? I'm not gonna-!" Their face pops into view, illuminated by their phone screen. "Nightwing? What the hell did you do?!" The voice on the other end of the phone barks.
"Yeah, Hood, I'm gonna have to call you back."
"Wh-" He hangs up.
Danny's watching him with wide, terrified eyes, his chest pumping for air. He’s laid back across his empty living room floor, on his elbows.
"Heyyyy, little guy." Nightwing, as Danny now recognizes him, eases. He keeps the window mostly shut, held open only by his hand, so his voice is muffled by the dingy glass. "No need to panic. No need to panic. I'm Nightwing, I'm not gonna hurt you, yeah?"
Danny stays frozen in place, still panting.
"You weren't, uh, supposed to see me just now." The hero chuckles nervously, "I actually didn't think anyone lived in this building. It's condemned, kiddo."
Condemned?! Danny's jaw just about drops. That fucking landlord illegally leased him a room in a condemned building?!
Guess that's what he gets, all circumstances considered. He did illegally lease it to a minor, so. Actually this was kind of a steal.
"I live here?" Danny mumbles, nervously.
Nightwing blinks at him. "You do? Where are your parents?"
Danny sits up a bit more. "No, i-t's just me." He shakes his head.
Nightwing seems even less sure what to do with this information. "No parents? You live here alone? That's not-" He pauses, a smirk on his face as if he thought Danny was joking. It falters after Danny offers no response. "Can I come in? Please?"
"Why?" Danny asks immediately, getting up off his elbows to stand.
"Um. To talk. You shouldn't be staying in here, bud, it's a health hazard."
"Well, aren't you?" Danny retorts, standing now.
Nightwing blinks at him for a moment before he chuckles. "Touche. But my apartment's been renovated to keep all the icky stuff out."
"So then why stay here? Why not somewhere nicer?"
The hero's head dips, defeatedly, before he looks up at Danny again. "Well, it was a safehouse."
"A safehouse? For what?"
"For heroes like me. But I've been stationed in it for a few weeks now since I've been in Gotham." He explains.
"Why did you say 'was'?"
Nightwing sighs softly, "Well, because now that you know about it, I'm gonna have to abandon it. It's compromised."
"Oh." Danny mumbles. "Sorry. Didn't mean to mess up your, uh, stuff."
"Hey, it's okay. Got plenty of 'em. But enough about me! Can I come inside?" He asks again.
Danny hesitates. He knew about Nightwing--he knew about all the Bats and Birds, really. Him and Tuck loved heroes. He knew he was a good hero, a good person too, most likely. And his ecto-signature felt wholesome enough.
"Um, I guess." Danny shrugs, and he watches as Nightwing immediately slides the window up and crawls inside. He stands, and Danny is swallowed up.
The guy is fucking huge! Well, not really. But he's tall! And his thigh might be the size of Danny's entire fucking torso oh my holy hell
Danny blinks, and shakes his head a bit to try and focus again, "Listen, I'm not gonna, like, out your safehouse to anyone, okay? It's just me here, so you don't have to worry about that." He starts as he turns around, pacing to the other side of the room to gain more ground.
"Little dude, that's not what I'm even worried about, 'kay?" Nightwing eases, "I just want to know what a kid your age is doing this deep in a condemned building." His eyes rake over the studio, taking in Danny's sad, makeshift 'bed' sprawled out on the hardwood, and the cans of unopened spaghettios on the kitchen counter. "Do you- You live here?"
"Um, yeah?" Danny retorts.
Nightwing looks back over at Danny. "How old are you?"
"Old enough." The teen bites back.
"I'm gonna guess thirteen."
"Fourteen." Danny corrects quickly.
"And what are you doing living all the way out here in Crime Alley by yourself, then?" The man crouches down, probably trying to make himself seem less painfully intimidating.
Danny sighs, and scrubs his hands across his face, "It's the only place I could find, okay?"
The hero raises an eyebrow at him. "Really?"
"Yes! No one else would even talk to me since I'm fourteen and only have cash."
"So you went to Crime Alley."
"Well, I have a roof over my head, don't I?" Danny replies sharply.
"A roof probably one bad breeze away from caving in."
"Alright, why don't you run away from your fuckass monster parents to try to survive on your own and see how easy that is, huh?" Danny shoots back.
NIghtwing sighs softly through his nose, eyes roaming Danny's agitated expression. "Why'd you run away?"
The teen scrubs his hands all over his face again. "I don't wanna get into that."
"A summary, then?"
Danny takes a slow breath. "My parents hunt these things they think are monsters. They hunt them and either kill them, or kidnap them to experiment on them. I-I've seen them. Do it. Take one of them, do their little tests on them. It's-" He pauses, looking sick to his stomach.
"And you're one of them?"
Danny's eyes blow wide, "What?! No-!"
"Hey, hey, it's okay. Signal, one of the other vigilantes I work with, is one too." Nightwing reassures him.
Danny pauses. "What."
"He's a meta. Just like you."
"...a meta." Danny trails.
"Yeah. A meta-human. Sort of like a mutant, you know. You were referring to metas, weren't you?" Nightwing raises an eyebrow at him.
"Um. Sure, yeah, in a way, I guess." Danny shrugs, really not wanting get into the specifics right now. "Anyway, I just-" He turns, pacing to the little kitchenette as he talks, "They found out about me. Being one of the monsters."
Realization dawns on the hero, Danny can read it in his expression. "And they wanted to do those tests on you."
Danny buries his face in his hands. "They did."
The room goes quiet. There's a creak from the floorboards as Nightwing stands. Danny can feel his eyes roaming over his smaller form. More silence. "What's your name?"
The boy keeps his face buried in his hands. "Danny."
"Nice name." Nightwing remarks, "And you know what's even nicer? My homemade mac and cheese. What do you say I pop over to my place, grab some stuff, and we really put this little baby kitchen to work, huh?"
An eye peeps out from between the teen's fingers. "Mac and cheese?"
"You can't very well be living off spaghettios, now can you? Not like I blame you! They're my fav too." Nightwing is already starting to crawl back out the window, "Okay, give me like ten minutes tops! Brb!" And he ducks out of view.
Danny is left standing there, stunned, one eye peeking out from his hands.